Jesse

We write lots of mean things about lots of people we'd love to see get some comeuppance. We run lots of leaked memos and internal communications, some of them rather embarrassing to the company from which they were leaked. What's truly remarkable is that someone was just moments ago fired — and it's someone we very much like — over an item that wasn't mean, that didn't attempt to deliver any comeuppance, and was in no way embarrassing to the company from which it was leaked.

Andrew Krucoff, the well-known blogger to whom we often jokingly — lovingly, even — refer as Gawker's mascot, has worked as a freelance research analyst at Conde Nast for the last four months. He's good at what he does, and his bosses were very pleased with his work. (We know, because his immediate supervisor regularly told us.) Last week, while emailing with us on a totally unrelated matter, he forwarded along an internal notice that Conde's internet servers were down — just to explain why he'd disappeared from instant messenger. We posted that memo, made an innocuous joke about how our traffic would likely fall and VF staffers would have more difficulty killing time. We did not first ask Andrew for his OK, because we didn't think something so inconsequential would be a big deal.

We're shocked. We're disappointed. We're a little mad at our ourselves (and not for all the usual reasons). We're also now somewhat pleased that Vanity Fair lost that suit to Roman Polanski in London a month or two ago, because clearly the company is as censorious — hell, more so — than any plaintiff-friendly U.K. libel court.

In any case, if anyone needs a good numbers guy — who's also a pretty amazing writer, to be honest — let us know. We'll put you in touch. (Unless he gets the Mediabistro editor gig first.)

From: Andrew Krucoff
To: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 4:00 PM
Subject: there was really only one way this was gonna end, right?

hello everyone, do you ever feel like there's a karmic boomerang with a steel razor edge flying around just waiting for the right moment to swoop down and cut me to pieces? perhaps you have personally wanted to kick me in the nuts so hard that my eyes would bleed dog-vomit? well sit back and laugh, because today you have the last one.

I only forwarded the "damaging" memo to jesse from my conde nast email address (which i rarely use outside of work) because our web-access was down but company email was still functioning and i needed to tell him something about edits to the heeb magazine piece I submitted to gawker. the internal memo was not intended as a "tip" but an fyi as to why i wasn't online. as soon as i saw it posted on gawker i feared the worst and hoped it would blow over. (jesse can attest to this.)

no such luck. in classic conde nast paranoid fashion, they threw a ten-ton shit and, eventually, me to the curb. after tracking down the email and then reading all the references on gawker with me as their "mascot" they had seen enough. apparently si and chuck were talking about suing me. i'll have more to say as I figure out what to do next. i'm thinking of joining the falun gong movement in times square.